Question: In a class of $9$, there are $3$ students who are secretly robots. If the teacher chooses $2$ students, what is the probability that neither of them are secretly robots?
We can think about this problem as the probability of $2$ events happening. The first event is the teacher choosing one student who is not secretly a robot. The second event is the teacher choosing another student who is not secretly a robot, given that the teacher already chose someone who is not secretly a robot. The probabilty that the teacher will choose someone who is not secretly a robot is the number of students who are not secretly robots divided by the total number of students: $\dfrac{6} {9}$ Once the teacher's chosen one student, there are only $8$ left. There's also one fewer student who is not secretly a robot, since the teacher isn't going to pick the same student twice. So, the probability that the teacher picks a second student who also is not secretly a robot is $\dfrac{5} {8}$ So, the probability of the teacher picking $2$ students such that none of them are secretly robots is $\dfrac{6}{9}\cdot\dfrac{5}{8} = \dfrac{5}{12}$